MitoNuc and MitoAln: two related databases of nuclear genes coding for mitochondrial proteins

Mitochondria, besides their central role in energy metabolism, have recentl y been found to be involved in a number of basic processes of cell life and to contribute to the pathogenesis of many degenerative diseases, All funct ions of mitochondria depend on the interaction of nuclear and organellar ge nomes. Mitochondrial genomes have been extensively sequenced and analysed a nd the data collected in several specialised databases. In order to collect information on nuclear coded mitochondrial proteins we developed MitoNuc a nd MitoAln, two related databases containing, respectively, detailed inform ation on sequenced nuclear genes coding for mitochondrial proteins in Metaz oa and yeast, and the multiple alignments of the relevant homologous protei n coding regions. MitoNuc and MitoAln retrieval through SRS at http://bio-w ww.ba.cnr.it:8000/srs6/ can easily allow the extraction of sequence data, s ubsequences defined by specific features and nucleotide or amino acid multi ple alignments.